watercolor

“$1200!” gasped a workshop attendee, “Our instructor gets $1200 for a painting that took only an hour to complete? $1200 for something so small? I can pick up any number of 18 x 24 inch watercolors at an art fair for no more than $250 apiece.” Having said that, she indignantly stormed off the grounds. A friend of mine once said, “The reason I put so much paint on my canvases is that I price them by the pound.” How shall we value a masterpiece?

The lean man who came to my easel as I painted en plein air this day had leather straps on his hands and pants and wore a flamboyant shirt under his black leather vest. His hair was braided with colorful ribbons and beads woven into the strands. He had a plastic bottle of some liquid in his hand, which I discovered was beer when he wasted some on my backpack containing my art supplies. When I turned the conversation to spiritual things, I mentioned an event which had been in the news; the ‘God particle’. “Oh, you’re refering to the Higgs Boson,” he said as he went on to wax eloquently about the science behind the theory.